Quinquagesima 2021 — Esgetology

St. Luke 18:31-43

February 14, 2021

It’s Valentine’s Day, so I suppose I should begin with something appropriate for the day. A wise man once said, “By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher” (Socrates).

If you want to understand how medieval Roman theology became so corrupted, look at how it became captive to philosophy. Luther was a law student who became a monk, then a doctoral student, and finally a university professor. He knew the system inherited from Aristotle and Aquinas inside and out. And here was his conclusion: “He who without danger wants to be a philosopher in Aristotle ought to have become first a good fool in Christ.”

With God, human wisdom and foolishness are turned upside down. St. Paul says that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” [1 Cor. 1.18]. The world sees Christianity as foolish. Look at today’s Gospel. Do the words of Jesus, or the actions of the blind man, make any sense?

The blind man sees. That’s a miracle.

But the greater miracle is that the blind man, now seeing, becomes a fool. The seeing one follows Jesus into the darkness. That’s where they’re going.

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

“When Jesus calls a man, He bids him come and die” [Bonhoeffer]. The blind man, now seeing, follows Jesus into darkness, into death.

We’re on the cusp of Lent. Jesus calls us to follow Him. To go where He goes.

Everything in us screams, “No!” We want the power and the glory. There’s no glory in an execution. That’s what Paul means when he says “the message of the cross is foolishness.”

One of Luther’s famous distinctions was between a church that sought power and glory, vs. a church that followed Jesus in the way of the cross. The theologians of glory seek earthly triumphs; the theologians of the cross go with Jesus to His death.

Hermann Sasse put it this way:

The theologian of glory looks upon the world, the works of creation. By his reason he perceives behind them the invisible nature of God, His omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness. But God remains for him invisible. The theologian of the cross looks upon the Crucified. Here there is nothing great, beautiful, sublime as in the splendid works of creation. There is nothing but “humility,” “shame,” “weakness,” “suffering,” “painful death.”

When I was Confirmed, my pastor, Roy Karner, who was a kind and godly man, let us pick a confirmation hymn. Immediately I lobbied for a triumphal hymn with a stirring tune, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. I’ve soured on it over the years. For one thing, it never mentions Jesus. It fits everything Sasse said about the theology of glory: it looks at creation and sees God’s omnipotence. It praises God for being the King of creation, “who o’er all things is wondrously reigning.” But Christ is assumed, and His cross is absent.

My natural self would like it that way. Jesus is a friend, someone who’ll set you up with the spirit in the sky. But the natural self does not want a bleeding, suffering Jesus who bids us follow Him, with the blind man, into the darkness.

Remember a few weeks ago, on Transfiguration Sunday, how Moses asked to see God’s glory? God said “No,” but allowed Moses to see His “back,” God’s posterior.

And in this terrifying moment, Moses hears a Word: “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” [Ex. 34:6]. What does Moses see, when he sees the backside of God? He sees death, i.e., he sees the cross, and simultaneously hears the Word of who God is: merciful, gracious, patient, good.

This is a mystery. We can’t subject God, then, to philosophy or any science, as though He is an object to be studied. What we can know of God we see on the cross. That’s where the mercy is, the grace of God to a world gone mad, bloodthirsty for glory.

In the cross, in the death of God, God is drawing us to death. Not just the death of your body, but the death of your will. God is making you will what you do not will. Think of Jesus in the Garden. He prays for a way around the cross. “Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” “Thy will be done” becomes the prayer of the Crucified One, and the prayer of us His disciples.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want the world’s scorn. I don’t want to love, I want to be loved. I want money, pleasure, success, ease. But in the kingdom of God, everything is reversed from the way my natural self thinks. The first are last, and the last first. The one who loves his life will lose it, but the one who hates his life in this world will find it.

So it’s my natural self that must die. Yours too. Jesus is calling us to follow Him to death.

That’s what the blind man sees. The One who can restore sight can also restore life to dead bodies, and love to dead souls.

So there’s only one way to go: with Jesus into the darkness. That’s the only way to the true Light.

And so will you.